


Washing Machine Heart

by soyforramen



Category: Archie Comics, Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, Laundromat AU, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-21
Updated: 2019-09-21
Packaged: 2020-10-25 09:46:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20722187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soyforramen/pseuds/soyforramen
Summary: The laundromat was always Betty's safe haven.





	Washing Machine Heart

Another Thursday night. Which for Betty Cooper meant it was laundry night despite her roommate's insistent, consistent attempts to get her to go out and ‘be young for once.’ They’d been paired their freshman year in the Elm Street dorms and were instantly inseparable. So much so that they were going on their third year rooming together in the dorms, Betty as a condition of her scholarship, Veronica as a necessity born out of her father’s disgraceful fall from Wall Street into San Quentin.

Despite her lack of funding, Veronica still maintained a rich girl attitude towards life. Particularly when it came to socializing.

“We’ll never have this time again, B! It’s the start of our junior year. We’re teetering on the precipice of adulthood and will never have this kind of freedom again. It’s our moral imperative to enjoy what remains of our youth, not spend all our time locked in repetitive chores meant to be done during hangover recovery.”

Betty, however, was not one to to be moved from her established routines. Routines that kept her from falling off her own precipice born of anxiety. And Veronica’s idea of fun usually involved loud, thumping music accompanied by flashing lights and drunken bodies pressed close enough to smell their deodorant. That kind of fun was exactly the push required to send Betty over the carefully crafted ledge she’d been building for years.

Besides, laundry was a soothing balm for the insanity of the outside world. Inside these four walls, the sharp tang of laundry detergent and the gentle rhythms of a tumble dry, she was just one more person among many trying to stay on top of their life. Here she didn’t have to put on a strong front and pretend she had everything together. She wasn’t her own person here, not really.

Outside, the world was uncertain and her path unstable. There she could worry about whether she’d picked the right major (was environmental science really the best way to change the world? Or would she be better served by pursuing her writing, even if that meant a lifetime in retail?), if her parents were still fighting back at home, if her sister was still alive…

There were as many unknowns in her life, as many as the stars in the night’s sky back home. 

Here, though, in the laundromat at the edge of campus none of that existed. Soft neon advertisements were where she could escape to far away lands. The only names that mattered here were detergent brands and long dead presidents to pay for the wash. 

It was Betty’s favorite place in Greendale and she wouldn’t give it up for any drunk frat party that was like every other drunk frat party.

So it was that she found herself at the laundromat watching her clothes cycle around, ticking the seconds off her life. It was a blur of spinning pastels that never failed to lull her into a waking dream. Her mind was miles away, thoughts of everything and nothing running through her head. 

Her meditations were broken by someone clearing their throat behind her. She blinked herself back into reality and turned to face a guy she’d never seen before. His face was marred by a scowl, black hair hidden under a grey beanie wrong in every way for this time of year.

“You’re on my machine.”

Betty made a soft noise of apology and hopped off the machine. When she’d thrown her clothes into the dryer, the washer across from it had long since been still but she hadn’t thought to check to see if it was empty.

“Sorry,” she murmured. She bent down to pick up her book bag and walked to an empty table.

Normal routine now interrupted, she sat down heavily on a bench and pulled out her environmental science textbook. 

Xxx

One more Thursday night. Another week gone by, filled with classes, extracurriculars, and her roommate’s various social outings. Tonight Betty made sure to lift the lid of the washing machine she planned to perch on. Empty. And so she sat, watching her own clothes in a controlled spin.

Halfway through the cycle, a lid slammed shut and she was drawn out of her fog. Betty turned to find the scowler from last week two rows down, throwing his laundry into an open dryer. She watched as he picked up another bag and dumped its contents into the newly vacated washer, not taking the time to separate anything into separate loads. He drew a plastic baggie from his coat pocket and dumped a white powder into the wash, not even bothering to measure out what was clearly twice as much soap as really needed.

It must be freeing, she thought as she watched, to not have the compulsion to measure things out, to not have to double check that a blue shirt hadn’t gotten mixed in with the whites, the pants and delicates didn’t share the same space.

His eyes caught hers, and he gave her a slow nod. Here in this otherworldly place the anxiety didn’t raise its stained head to chastise Betty about manners, embarrassment didn’t pull her underwater to shame her for her curiosity.

She nodded back and watched as he choose a table at the far end of the laundromat to hover over a laptop for the rest of the spin cycle.

Xxxxx

The Scowler, as she’d named him, became just as much a part of her Thursday routine as Ms. Padina, the single mother who lived across the way, had. The only difference was that Betty and Ms. Padina exchanged a few polite words while the Scowler only nodded when he caught Betty openly staring at him in the empty space.

He always slipped in somewhere between the wash and rinse cycle. Betty never caught him coming through the front door, though. It was almost as if he appeared out of the drain in the floor, rising up through the tiles only to solidify into broody flannel and denim.

She knew it was rude to stare, but there was little else besides her and the machines on Thursday nights. 

As she watched him slink through the rows of machines she wondered what his hair was like under the cap he always wore. Perhaps he was slowly going bald or wore cat ears under it like that group who always sat on the green. Or maybe his hair was as thick and lush as Veronica’s.

Betty mentioned him in passing conversation when Veronica had teased her about her laundry ritual. 

“You’re the only person our age who does anything productive on Thursday. Everyone else is going out,” Veronica said as she ran a brush through her hair.

“No, there’s another student who comes in on Thursdays.”

It was enough for Veronica to ask about Betty’s ‘laundry boy’, a label Betty didn’t care enough to dispute. Instead she’d just smiled and picked up her laundry basket before heading to the edge of town.

Veronica’s teasing hadn’t meant much, but it did make Betty wonder whether it was time to move on from Raj. It had planted a seed that had slowly grown root over the past few weeks. Instead of a crush, though, it had flowered into a curiosity about the only other person in the room. She’d begun to realize that his nose was larger than normal, that his eyes were almost always half-closed as he went through the motions of folding laundry. He moved through the world as if he were perpetually irritated with it in the way his shoulders hunched in on themselves and his mouth drawn into a line.

Today he had his back to her. He banged away at the laundry machine as if it had personally insulted him. Maybe he was just irritated at having to do such a menial task every week. Or perhaps that’s just who he was at the heart of things, a perpetually mad man.

He patted down his pockets, his shoulders hiked near his ears as he searched through them. When he turned, she gave him a slow nod. Like oil on water, his eyes scanned the room behind her. She followed his gaze and found they were the only two in this momentary world.

The Scowler shoved his hands deep into his coat pockets and walked towards her. Betty waited for him to break the silence they’d grown comfortable with over the past two months. 

He glanced at her and away, as if she were one of the bright neon signs surrounding them, too bright and loud and colorful to look at for too long. Finally, he cleared his throat and spoke to the space around her.

“Can I borrow some soap?”

Betty smiled her polite, helpful smile, a crack of her outside self spilling through, a strange moment of normalcy despite his inattention. 

“Sure, not a problem.”

She turned and pulled a detergent pod out of the laundry basket behind her. She held it out and he took it without managing to look at her, their hands grazing together.

His fingers were long and cold as death.

Xxxx

Betty tapped her pencil against the paper as she stared out the bay window. This assignment was supposed to be easy enough, interview someone you saw regularly but didn’t actually know. As the professor had explained he wanted them to look at the people in their lives through a different lens. It felt like one more strange, patronizing assignment meant to make a professor feel better about themselves, Betty mused.

Ms. Padina would have been perfect for ten simple questions. The only hitch was that she hadn’t come in tonight. The only other person Betty had seen was an older gentleman who’d left shortly after she’d arrive. With the run of the place to herself, Betty curled herself in a far corner to stake out the entrance, hoping someone she recognized would come through the door.

Eventually, the Scowler passed by the window, later than usual for him, along with a red-head she’d never seen before. The red-head was smiling widely and laughing, familiar enough to her that he might be one of those who was in Veronica’s orbit or in one of her nightmarishly large classes. Next to him the Scowler had a hint of a smith, an expression that changed his entire presence.

Both were carrying some version of a laundry bag, the red-head with a bulging canvas bag thrown over his shoulder, the scowler with his usual pair of draw-stringed bags. Their laughter invaded the space long before them, and Betty watched as they wandered along the aisles of washers. The Scowler’s head scanned the room as if looking for something, but it wasn’t until they’d both loaded up washers - the Scowler taking up his usual two, the red-head over-filling three machines - that he met her eye.

He nodded at her and Betty waved back. She wondered if he’d be willing to be interviewed, but something told her that if they weren’t talking after three months of seeing the other on a weekly basis he wouldn’t be willing to divulge personal information so easily.

The red-head, though, caught sight of Betty and beamed. He said something to the Scowler, clapped him on the back and made his way over to where Betty sat.

“Hi, I’m Archie Andrews.” He held out a hand, and Betty took it.

“Betty Cooper,” she said with a smile. There was something so overwhelmingly positive and open about him Betty couldn’t help but like him.

“So, do you, uh. Come here often?”

“Every Thursday,” came the Scowler’s dour response. He’d followed Archie over to the table and regarded Betty with crossed arms. The contrast between them was as stark as day and night, an odd pair regardless of how she looked at them.

“Oh right. Jug’s does laundry on Thursdays too,” Archie said with a nod towards his friend.

“I’ve noticed,” Betty said, biting back a laugh. Her amusement encouraged Archie and he pulled out the cheap plastic chair across from her. The Scowler rolled his eyes but didn’t wander off to his usual corner. 

“What are you working on?”

Betty set the paper on the table in front of her. The ten questions stared back at her as if pointing out now would be a good time to have them answered.

“Professor Crabapple wants us to interview someone we don’t know. A socialization experiment of sorts.”

“Greet timing! You don’t know me yet,” Archie said. He pulled out the chair next to him and grinned at his friend, a sly shift of his smile that piqued Betty’s curiosity. “Or Jughead.”

Jug-head? It was an odd, funny nickname that didn't seem to fit the serious man in front of her. At least, she hoped it was a nickname.

Jughead rubbed the back of his neck, his eyes flitting across the empty room. “I don’t think -”

“That would really help me out, actually,” Betty said. Normally she wouldn’t have imposed on a stranger’s time, but Archie was willing and her curiosity about Jughead was growing. She shifted the paper and picked up her pencil, posed to write.

“Name, Archie Andrews.”

“Archibald Richard Andrews. Family name” He grinned at her, seemingly used to the oddly antiquated name.

Betty struck out the name and rewrote it. He certainly didn’t seem like an Archibald. That was reserved for someone more self-conscious and snobbish. She snuck a glance at Jughead to find his scowl had deepened. And yet, he still hadn’t run away to his usual corner. Perhaps he was worried about what Archie might say or do. Or, worse, what she might.

“Major?” she asked.

“Kinesiology. With a minor in music theory.”

“He was a regular Troy Bolton in high school,” Jughead mumbled.

Archie’s face flushed and Betty bit down a laugh. 

“Where are you from?”

“Riverdale. It’s close to the border.”

“The strangest town you’ve never heard of,” Jughead quipped. 

Archie laughed, and Betty wrote it down. Briefly she wondered whether it would be weird to Sleuthster it to see if it was just as odd as claimed. 

“Favorite movie?”

“Die Hard. Wait, no. Titanic,” Archie said.

“A romantic at heart,” Betty teased. She wrote both down and wondered on the answers. It shouldn’t matter whether Archie was telling the truth, really, but there was something so odd in the dichotomy, not only in Archie’s answers but also the pair in front of her.

“Favorite book?”

For the first time since he’d sat down Archie wasn’t forthcoming with an answered. He shifted in his seat and Jughead was quick to answer for him.

“You finished Moby Dick in two days when the library got the CDs in.”

“It was the symbolism, dude,” Archie said, a touch of defensiveness in his voice. “And Ahab and Starbuck totally had a thing going on, I had to know how it ended up.”

Betty stared at Archie, baffled. “You ship Moby Dick?”

“No, that’s the whale. The ship’s Pequod.”

Behind him, Jughead snorted and covered his smile with his hand. A buzzer went off across the room, the only dryer in use, and Betty knew her clothes were done.

“Okay, question 6. Who do you take after most, your mother or your father?”

Across from her, Archie’s vibrant energy vanished and his eyes dropped to the table. “My father,” he said softly.

Jughead shifted his weight so that his elbow was pressed against Archie’s shoulder, his usual scowl replaced by a more thoughtful appearance. There was a sore spot there, she realized, and she shifted to what she hoped was a lighter question. 

“What person, living or dead, would you most like to have dinner with?”

Archie’s face went white. The chair bounced off Jughead as Archie bolted to the bathroom. Jughead went after him with a grimace.

Betty’s heart pounded hard enough against her chest she had to steady it with her hand. An ache went through her with every beat and she felt nauseous. She screwed her eyes shut and breathed deep, knowing how illogical these moments could be for her. Her mind knew whatever happened had nothing to do with her, and yet.

Numbers were easy enough to focus her breathing on. One, two, three… she counted to a hundred and it still wasn’t enough.

Inadvertently she’d caused Archie massive pain and all for a stupid school assignment. She’d known when he’d sat down this was a bad idea, and she’d gone against every instinct in doing what amounted to less than a percentage point of her grade. Now she’d be up late worrying over him, worrying whether she’d have to find a new laundromat, worrying over whether she’d be the school’s most hated person.

When she opened her eyes again, she was still alone, the questions staring up at her menacingly. Betty left it on the table and rushed to the dryer. She had to get out of here before the walls caved in on her. On the verge of tears she threw her clothes into the basket, forgoing her usual folding routine. 

“I didn’t think we were that bad,” a dry voice said. 

Betty shut the dryer door and eyed Jughead. His body language was closed off but relaxed, a hand shoved in his jacket pocket. The rush of emotions was still stuck in her throat, choking her words. 

“Is he -”

“He’ll be fine. Ate some bad shrimp. Told him seafood three hundred miles inland wasn’t a good choice.” 

He stared at her, his eyes dark enough to peel back all the layers she wore to keep the world out, and she dropped her gaze to the basket. Like a popped balloon, the room opened up around her again. It was silly to have gotten so worked u and the block in throat dissolved as her heart rate slowed.

“Truman Capote.”

Betty’s head shot up to look at Jughead. His stance hadn’t changed, but his eyes had. The guardedness that had always been there had softened and Betty realized just how blue his eyes were.

“For your question thing. The person I’d most like to have dinner with.” He held out the paper to her. 

Betty took it and laid it flat on the washer in front of her. Jughead set her pencil down next to the paper. 

“What’s the next question?” he asked, as if he hadn’t had the chance to read them.

Betty glanced towards the bathroom as she scribbled the answer in, the strange, irrational guilt rising up once again. As much as she wanted to run, as much as she would give up to not have to have this conversation, her assignment was due in the morning and Jughead seemed to harbor her no ill will.

“If you had an extra hour of time in the day -” she cleared her throat and focused on the paper in front of her and not what had just transpired, “-how would you spend it?”

“Sleeping.” 

“In three words, how would you describe your best friend?”

“Loyal, heartfelt, and an idiot.”

Betty laughed softly. It was more of an honest answer than she’d come to expect from him.

“Are you answering for him or for you?”

“Does it matter?” 

A hiccup of what she wanted to tell him died on her lips. Of course it mattered. _Words_ mattered. More than he could ever know. The knot of pent-up anxiety tightened in her stomach.

“If you could only eat one meal for the rest of your life, what would it be?”

“Double bacon cheeseburger, no onions, extra pickles, side of fries, and a chocolate milkshake,” Jughead said without a thought.

Betty snuck another glance over towards the bathrooms. Still no sign of Archie. “That’s it, thank you.”

She placed the paper in the basket, torn between wanting to run from whatever faux pas she’d committed and wanting to wait for the chance to apologize profusely.

“He’ll be fine. Arch’s stronger than he looks.” 

Betty chewed her lip, uncertainty coloring her judgment. She didn’t know either Archie or Jughead, but she realized she wanted to. 

“Will you tell him I’m sorry? And thank you, for helping me?” 

Jughead nodded. 

“Thanks,” she muttered. She picked up her laundry basket and left the laundromat, her own internal demons heckling her for not picking better questions.

Xxx

The next Thursday brought with it a wash of anxiety. Once a place of solitude and respite, Betty dreaded her return to the laundromat. She’d put it off as long as she could, focusing instead on study and cleaning, until it was close to midnight. It wasn’t until Veronica commented on her hesitation that Betty found the strength to pick up her laundry basket and make her way to the car. 

She knew she’d blown the whole situation out of proportion, as usual, but that didn’t make things any better. On the drive over she spiraled out every worse case scenario she could think of until her mind finally broke on how ridiculous she was being about it. 

Even still, it felt better to wait a few moments in her car, the ticking engine a familiar comfort, before she headed inside the quiet building. As the door closed behind her with its soft bell, Betty scanned the room. Ms. Padina had brought her teenage daughter and was folding sheets at the far end. She waved at Betty and went back to arguing with her oldest. On the other side of the room sat Jughead, laser focused on his laptop. Thankfully there was no sign of Archie.

Betty took a deep breath and marched towards the machine. This was, after all, her space regardless of whatever invisible boundary she’d overstepped last week. It wouldn’t do to let insecurities and misplaced anxiety drive her away. In the first machine she measured out the detergent carefully and separated out her delicates before moving to the next. She’d just set her sneakers into the drum when a voice behind her made her jump.

“You wash your shoes?”

She spun and found Jughead leaning up against a washer. He was calm, just as he always was, and he didn’t seem to have any ill will towards her. If his body language was anything to go by he was the one checking up on her.

Odd, considering he seemed more worn down this week, as if he hadn’t slept since she’d last seen him. Rationally, Betty knew it was because everyone looked more run down during midterms, but a passing thought had her wondering whether he was a vampire. He was pale enough for it. But, if he was, surely he wouldn’t waste his time washing clothes. Did vampires even have to wash clothes, or did they just -

Jughead shifted and the noise of his shoes against the linoleum snapped Betty back to reality.

“It keeps them clean.”

Betty turned back to the washer and measured out the detergent. Her heart rate had picked up again, this time flavored with a distinctly different type of anxiety.

“How’s Archie? Is he alright?” she asked.

She glanced over her shoulder and saw a cloud of emotion burrow itself between Jughead’s eyebrows. In the neon light that fell around them, light advertising products long since discontinued, the weight of the world seemed painted across his face.

“He’ll be fine. He did want to tell you he was sorry about last week.”

Betty turned to face him, her face pinching in a moment before the voice that sounded distinctly like her mother reminded her about premature wrinkles. She let her face relax and gripped the detergent tighter.

“I should be the one apologizing, after the way he acted -”

Jughead shook his head. “It was a rough summer, and there’s no way you could have known.” He didn’t offer any further explanation. “And Arch tends to worry about people. He thought you might have failed your paper because of him.”

Betty chewed on her lip, her gaze unfocused on the dryers to her left. The tenseness she’d worn like an insulation blanket since last Tuesday slid from her shoulders. It left behind something she couldn’t quite identify, something that helped to quell her thoughts for the moment. She laid her hands flat against her sides to take it in. It was odd, really, that things never seemed to work out the way she feared they would.

“I’m okay. And you helped with my assignment, both of you. So,” she trailed off thinking that would be the end of it. When he didn’t leave it struck Betty that Jughead might be just as lonely as she was. 

“What are you always working on?” Betty asked now that her curiosity had some room to grow.

Jughead’s eyes slid past her to watch Ms. Padina leave for the night. “I write,” he said as he waved at the older woman.

“About?”

He shrugged. “Things.”

If anything caught Betty’s attention it was intentionally vague answers. Feigning disinterest she clasped her hands together and stretched them out in front of her. “I used to write.”

Jughead raised an eyebrow, his own interest piqued. “About.”

She shrugged and was unable to fully mask her smile. “Things.”

He snorted. “Touche.”

A loud buzz came from behind and he nodded towards the dryers. “That would be me. I’ll see you around.”

“Night Jughead.”

xxx

The Thursday before fall break found Betty perched atop a washing machine, eyes glued to the screen in front of her. She picked at her cuticles, nails long since shredded to pieces. Words flowed like rain across her eyes and she sighed in disappointment when she reached the blinking cursor at the end.

“That bad?” Jughead asked. His tone was wry as usual, the only give away that he’d been paying attention to her was his left leg’s inability to sit still. 

Betty looked at him splayed on the washer across from her, his long limbs tumbling over the sides. Nerves and sharp focus were splashed in pink neon across his face, and she could only imagine what hers looked like under the harsh grey lights. 

“No, it’s good. I want to know where it goes, but -” she paused.

Her innate critic, the one therapists told her to ignore, threatened to pick out every misused ‘they’re’ and every dropped comma. Her fingers itched to pull the red from her bag and demand to mark up what was obviously a first draft.

“But what?” His gaze felt like a threat, sometimes, anticipation mixed with intensely vague promises.

Betty dropped her eyes to escape those promises and scrolled up on the touchpad. “I get that Jay wanted to run away because Paulina was pregnant, but why? Where things really so bad they had to run away? It’s the fulcrum of your story, but there’s no real reason to it.”

Jughead stretched out across the machines as he thought it through. “Why wouldn’t he want to run away from that kind of scandal? He’s a teenager in love with someone his family doesn’t approve of.”

“Unless Norman Rockwell is living next door I doubt you’ll get far with the society angle. Besides, if his family’s so wealthy why wouldn’t they just make Penelope and Jay stay with them? Why would Jay agree to help the Snakes if he could just take jewelry or valuables from his families and sell those for cash? It doesn’t seem like there’s enough hatred for the Flores' to cut Jay off like that, especially since they go on about heirs three chapters before.”

“I bet you’re a hoot to watch Lost with,” Jughead said. He was quiet for a long while, and Betty scrolled back up a few chapters and began to make her notes in the comments.

“What about an old family feud?” he finally asked.

She mulled it over. “That might work. Throw in a dead body and you might have a story.”

Xxxxx

A small, round carton armed with a spoon was set down in front of her next Thursday. Betty set down the towel she’d been folding to glance up at Jughead, who had his own spoon in his mouth. 

“What’s this?”

“Frozen yogurt,” he said. He looked away momentarily and shift his weight back to his heels. If Betty had known him any better, she’d have thought he was embarrassed. “Otherwise known as a thank you for your help with my novel.”

A grin spread across her face and she picked up the spoon to take a bite. Peaches and cream, one of her favorites. 

“_There’s something so human about taking something and ruining it a little just so you can have more of it_,” she quoted.

Jughead glanced back at her with his own grin. “_A food people enjoy, but is also kind of a bummer_.” He took another bite of his own. “Didn’t take you as a philosopher.”

Betty shrugged and picked up the towel she’d been folding “And I didn’t take you for a humorist.”

“What can I say? I have layers.” He took another large spoonful and threw his container in the nearby trash can. “And it doesn’t hurt it’s one of the few shows Archie and I agree on.”

“It’s my go-to for bad days. Helps take my mind off things,” Betty admitted easily.

She ate another scoop and reached for an old sweater her mother had tried to throw out long ago. A year ago, that simple admission that things weren’t perfect, that _she_ wasn’t perfect, would have been almost impossible. Then again, a lot of things she’d done would have been impossible a year ago.

Despite still having miles to go, Betty was struck by a small surge of pride for how human she was letting herself be these days. She ran her hand down the soft, worn out front of the sweater, it’s continued existence a reminder of how every now and then she could win a battle against what she’d been raised to be.

Jughead must have noticed because he nudged her foot with his. “Something good happening today?”

His concern ruffled something that sat deep within her and she was touched he’d noticed. Betty wasn’t ready to admit to anyone the progress she’d made, but perhaps one day. It was all too easy to imagine sharing it with someone like Jughead. Someday, perhaps, but not today.

“No. But it’s been getting better.” 

She scraped the last of the yogurt out of the container. Jughead held out his hand and, rather than insisting she could take care of it, Betty handed it to him to throw away. 

“Thanks for the thank you,” she said as she set her last shirt in her laundry basket. “You really didn’t have to, but I appreciate it all the same.”

Jughead looked at her, really looked at her, and Betty realized this was the closest they’d ever been. He had a scar along his hairline and another along his jaw. His eyes, though, his eyes were electric. An eruption of what felt like doves exploded only to settle softly in her chest.

“I wanted to,” he said, looking away. The spell was broken, if it had ever existed at all. “See you next week Betty.”

xxx

Betty licked the corner of her mouth and glanced towards the door. Veronica, having sensed a shift in Betty after last Thursday, a shift Betty herself didn’t understand, had insisted on a girls’ trip to a nearby spa. Like a shark smelling blood in the water, Veronica had slowly followed the small bits of information she’d pried out of Betty over the day and now was far more interested in whatever this small … thing between her and Jughead could be. 

As such, the fashionista insisted Betty do something more than the usual chapstick and swipe of mascara before she’d left for the laundromat; even then it had taken Veronica most of the week to convince Betty to wear even a light pink lipstick.

The doves that had taken up their home in Betty’s chest were back, only this time most of their number had been replaced by ravens and crows, portents of ill-will and certain doom for stepping outside of her routine. Or perhaps that was just the usual wariness of an uncertain outcome.

Ten minutes, she finally decided. If Jughead didn’t walk through that door in the next ten minutes she was going to wipe the lipstick off and tie her hair back into her usual ponytail. After all, it was silly to get so worked up about seeing a friend, particularly a boy who was her friend. Especially when there were so many more important things to worry about. Like her upcoming trig test, that weird mole on her back, and the inevitable dive of the planet into anarchy and destruction.

Her stomach churned at the same pace as her racing thoughts. Betty reached into her bag for the antacids she carried around like a rosary. A packet of tissues lay next to it and she set it on the table, perfect to take this tacky wax off her lips regardless of whether ten minutes had passed.

The bell above the door jingled. Betty peeked up to find Jughead walking in, large earphones blocking him from the world. He spotted her and nodded before walking over to his preferred row. 

Betty chewed what remained of her thumbnail. Her fingers itched to dig around in her bag for a hair tie, but she’d promised Veronica she’d at least try something different. For a few minutes, at least. He’d already seen her, anyways. It would be weird if she changed her appearance after he’d come in, wouldn’t it? Or maybe he’d think she did it because of him? Which, really, kind of was the point? Wasn’t it?

It was too late, now that Jughead had sat down across from her. 

“Cooper,” he greeted. Without another word, he’d pulled out his laptop and two large textbooks, worn down and tattered with age. Unlike the last few weeks their banter and small talk was absent, replaced by his single minded focus on - she tilted her head to read the spin - the history of modern America.

Betty wanted him to say something, anything, mostly to quell her own nerves. His brusque greeting didn’t mean anything other than he was stressed, it had nothing to do with her. That much was obvious by the fact that he hadn’t hidden in some other booth. And yet she’d expected some sort of comment about how she looked different. Maybe even a joke about whether she had an interview. 

Instead he offered no answers to any of her unspoken questions and it wasn’t long before her frustration for him to say something, anything, overcame her usual forced patience.

“Do you want to go to coffee?” she blurted out.

Immediately she regretted being so forward and wondered what the statistical likelihood that a black hole would pop up in the laundromat to erase any trace of her words was.

Jughead squinted at her, then glanced at his watch. Betty’s fingers twitched in on themselves and her heart thumped painfully in her chest as the silence stretched on. His reaction was far from anything she could have ever expected. Instead of letting her down gently, or letting her down any way at all, he shoved his laptop into his book bag and stood.

She wanted nothing more than to dissolve into thin air and she could deny tonight had ever happened.

“But your laundry,” she said softly as he walked out the door.

Betty groaned as he disappeared into the dark night. Veronica was wrong about this entire thing. 

And now she’d have to find some other way to wash her clothes. The small dorm was out of the question, she realized as she lay her head down on the table. There was not enough room in the small shower stall to properly clean anything, clothing or not, doubly so for drying anything. The commons fountain wasn’t even an option considering the rumors about what went on around there during rush and football season. 

No, the only proper thing to do would be to change her name, dye her hair, and move to another continent. That option should have been obvious from the start of the semester, what with her favorite professor starting that weird cult and the weird board game that had spread through campus. 

She was so lost in wallowing in her embarrassment a soft tap on the table made her jolt upright. Across from her, Jughead pulled his laptop out without a word just like he had earlier. In front of her were two cups of coffee. The name on the cup sleeves proudly proclaimed it was the cafe across the street.

“Figured you were a vanilla latte girl,” Jughead muttered with a nod to his left. His fingers flew across the keyboard as he spoke. “Other one’s a mocha.”

His gaze never left the screen, as if he was oblivious to the fact that the world around them had shifted several degrees to the right.

Betty bit down a smile and reached for a cup, more than happy that he hadn’t noticed her lipstick that night.

Xxxx

“This is me,” Betty said when they came to her beat up, hand me down Volvo. She smoothed down fly away hair from her messy bun, a side effect of the hectic finals season. 

The last Thursday before break and she and Jughead had spent it studying at the same table, their energy maintained by the coffee Jughead was now bringing each week.

“I guess I’ll see you after break then. Good luck on that paper, I hear Flutesnoot’s a stickler for editing.” With one last wave, Jughead turned towards the sidewalk, his shoes crunching through the snow still falling around them.

“You walked here?” Betty asked, her voice cutting through the silent night. 

He turned and hitched his book bag further up his shoulder. “It’s not that far.”

Betty set the laundry basket further up on her hip, the sleeves of her sweater falling over her hands. The wind chilled her to the bone and Jughead’s cheeks were a miserable shade of scarlet. Walking from the laundromat to her car had been downright torture; she couldn’t imagine trekking through this cold, even with that sheepskin jacket of his.

“Do you want a ride? I live on the other side of campus so it’d be on the way.” 

Everything was close by in a town this small. Even if he lived past the stadium it wouldn’t be more than a five minute drive back to the dorm. Half expecting him to decline, Betty was pleasantly surprised when he walked back towards her. 

“If you’re sure. It’s by the gas station off Main,” he said. His voice trailed and he looked as if he were expecting her to change her mind at any minute.  
Betty nodded and unlocked her door. She struggled with putting her basket in the back, always a chore when the back door didn’t open anymore, before she moved into the front seat to unlock the passenger door. 

As he climbed in, Betty turned the car on and the engine turned over. It’s purr was silenced by Cherie Currie’s growl to ‘I wanna kiss, wet and real, strong love’. With a flush, Betty shut the cassette player off.

Jughead cleared his throat and she couldn’t bring herself to look at him. 

“Haven’t seen a cassette player since my dad got rid of his old Ford.” 

“Part of Caramel’s charms - a rebuilt V8 engine, cassette player, and the best heater in the world,” Betty said, her voice full over overly bright cheer.

As she pulled out of the parking lot, the heater filled the car with hot air and Jughead put his hands up to the vents. His fingers were long and spider like as if they were meant to play the piano or run roughshod over a typewriter. Perhaps they were most useful for when he lured his unsuspecting victims into the shadows, or when he picked the locks of embassies around the world. Long fingers like that could easily rifle through file cabinets searching for corporate secrets - after all Jughead had never mentioned what, exactly, his job was and Betty had never seen him during the day -

“You missed the turn.”

Betty blinked herself out of her mind’s wandering and apologized as she turned down the next road. She was daydreaming again, a habit she still couldn’t break. The lack of sleep and heightened stress finals brought about always made it worse. One more thing about herself she couldn’t change, one more thing that reminded her she’d never be normal. That she’d -

“Any winter break plans?” Betty asked, more to keep her brain from wandering down that well-trodden path. 

As she spoke the words it occurred to her that despite spending many hours with Jughead, she still knew very little about him. He was a quiet, private person and the more fantastical part of her mind wondered whether he was a serial killer, or worse, one of those influencers Veronica kept mentioning. 

“Working, mostly,” Jughead said. He shifted in his seat. “No one else wants to stick around during break so I won’t have to fight to get hours. How else would I afford that coffee habit of yours when you get back?”

That brought a smile to her face. It was endearing, even if him bringing her coffee had come from a misunderstanding.

“This is it,” Jughead said as Betty pulled up next to an older apartment building. 

She turned to tell him good night and good luck on tomorrow’s final, but something in the way he looked at her made her pause. His hand reached up, hesitating halfway, to brush by her cheek. As gentle as a whisper her tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and the car was suddenly too hot for two people.

His eyes trailed to her lips and lingered there long enough Betty wanted desperately to close the gap between them. When she shifted, he jerked his hand away. The absence of his warmth left her shivering.

“Thanks for the ride,” Jughead mumbled as he opened the door and scrambled to get out. 

Cold air flushed the heart from the car, along with the pieces of Betty’s shattered ego.

Xxxx

It was the first week after break, and somehow Betty had allowed herself to be talked into going out. To a party. Instead of her usual Thursday night routine, Veronica had dolled Betty up and paired her off with some handsy moron before disappearing into the crowd. 

It wasn’t a mystery why Betty had agreed to this; a strange cocktail of recklessness brought about from spending three weeks with her parents and a desire to avoid Jughead and her bruised pride. She’d spent more than enough time dissecting that late night encounter over the break, and yet she hadn’t heard from him at all. It was easy enough for Betty to find his FaceStalk profile, and yet he hadn’t reached out to her. All of his actions, or rather lack of, had made it clear enough that he just wanted friendship. 

And that was enough for her, when she thought about it. So why was she still worrying over it?

Worrying over it enough that she hadn’t seen the snarling red head with a pitcher full of daiquiris until Betty was wearing most of it. Now she was sticky and borderline tipsy in a room full of people she didn’t know. The heat and too close bodies didn’t help to quell this rising sense of panic, either.

Once she’d excused herself and found an empty corner, Betty shot off a text to Veronica. _‘I’m going home’._ She didn’t expect an answer. As sweet and caring as Veronica was, she could also be one oblivious to the people around her.

The throng of people between her and the door made it difficult to move quickly and it gave Betty time to wonder what would have happened if she’d just stuck with her schedule. Would she have met Jughead there, an untouched cup of coffee cooling? Or would he have done the same thing she had and avoided it altogether?

A twinge of guilt hit her as she shoved her way past some strange drinking game involving shirtless jocks and catcalling women. Would he think she’d stood him up? They were only friends, after all, and it was expected that plans would change. 

The guilt was quickly overcome by the irritation that had burned itself down to a petulant smolder. He was the one who’d left her car that night and hadn’t tried to contact her. 

Betty channeled that frustration to shove the last overly ‘roided out jock out of her way. She glanced at the leaning tower of coats by the front door and was, for the first time, grateful she’d gone the extra mile to hang hers up in the side closet. As she slipped it on and stepped into the cold night air the building pressure in her chest began to deflate. The party had spilled out onto the porch and the bass still rattled her bones, but out here there was room enough to breath. 

The front steps proved she was past tipsy, and her hands grasped the frozen wood. On the third step her boot slipped out from under her and she braced herself for an impact that never came. She’d been caught before gravity could take her by strong and steady hands.

“Betty?”

She opened her eyes to find Jughead looking down at her. From this angle he looked like some alternate reality version of himself, a fish eyed lens view of a stranger. With a laugh she wiggled her fingers at him.

“It is Thursday,” she said.

That soft smile of his looked just as lovely from this angle, she decided, though she couldn’t help but wonder why he was here. 

“S’pose it is,” he said as he helped her to her feet. Keeping his hand on her arm, he followed her to the ground. “What are you doing here?”

“Veronica, the roommate. You?”

“Archie, the roommate.”

They stood there a minute too long, their breath hanging in the air around them with unspoken words. When she finally found them hers felt as rushed as his did, their voices overlapping and tripping over the other.

“I’m going back -”

“Do you want -”

They stopped as suddenly as they’d started and, just like that, the ice between them was broken. Jughead tapped his fingers against his thigh and glanced back at the house.

“Do you mind if I walk you back?”

His voice was soft enough she could have pretended not to hear it. But something in his face made the doves that had burnt to ash begin to shake off their long sleep. The hope in her chest was enough for now.

Betty nodded and they began the short walk to campus.

“I figured you’d be at the laundromat tonight,” she said. Her voice fell like the snow around them, quiet and light enough not to disturb the stillness around them. 

The world around them was a cocoon where nothing felt like it should, safe like other havens in her life, and she was comfortable enough to speak her mind.

The vodka and the company didn’t hurt, though.

“Would it be weird if I said I was nervous about going back?”

She glanced over at him, trying to find some hint of a lie. There was nothing there but the Jughead she knew.

“Why would you be nervous?”

He shoved his hands into his jacket, his shoulders rising up to meet his ears. 

“We didn’t, _I_ didn’t -” His words stumbled along with his feet on the slick sidewalk and Betty reached out to steady him.

They continued on and Jughead was quiet as he mulled over his thoughts. She was curious but not enough to pry. This was enough for now with the vodka still comfortably settled in her head and the winter wonderland spread out for just them. There wasn’t much that could put her off of this strange bubble of contentment she’d found.

At least not until the cold lights of her dorm stumbled into their path.  
“This is me.” 

They stood, staring at each other. A snowflake caught on Jughead’s cheek and sat there, unmelting. An urge came over her and Betty reached up to bush it away.

Jughead swallowed, his eyes searching hers. 

“I-”

He hesitated and Betty stepped closer. Despite the cold, her body was warm enough to melt the sun. 

And then, so was his.

The kiss was chaste, brief. A question mark for an unasked question, one Betty couldn’t help but ask herself when he pulled away. 

When they finally parted, Jughead looked sheepish. 

“I wanted to do that last month,” he admitted almost to himself.

“I did too.” She slipped her fingers between his ice cold ones. “Why didn’t you?”

He glanced away as his fingers held tighter. “I didn’t want to chase you away. I like you, as a friend, too,” he said with a quick glance. “And then Archie said I’d missed my shot, and you don’t even want to know what Reggie said -”

Betty pecked him on the lips and he stopped his rambling, a goofy smile on his face. “You could have just asked me.” She bit her lip, her mind already churning through all the possibilities this might bring. As hard as it was, she shoved them to the back of her mind to stay in the present.

“I’ll see you on Thursday?” he asked, his voice as soft as she felt.

“It’s a date.”

**Author's Note:**

> Big thank you to alicat for proofing this!


End file.
